Top Gun Tiger (Protection, Inc 7)

“Appreciate it. Get some sleep. I’ll keep the snakes off.”

He curled up under the blanket. In the quiet of the jungle night, she could easily hear the slight roughness of his breathing.

He’s not just injured, he’s sick, she thought. Coming down with a cold or something. Not surprising after he got chucked into a river… Still, poor Ethan! He ought to be in bed with chicken soup. Once they finished their mission and got back home, she’d make him some herself…

…but no, he was still on active duty. He’d have to go straight back to his unit, with barely a chance to say good-bye, and definitely none to wait around for six-hour chicken stock to finish simmering on her stove.

She sighed. Well, he’d go straight to the infirmary, and be taken care of even if she couldn’t do it herself. Destiny pulled the blanket a little closer around her shoulders and resumed her watch.

In the morning, Ethan once again tried to stuff his granola bar in his pocket. He caught her raised eyebrows and flushed, guilty as a kid with his hand in the cookie jar. “I’m just not hungry.”

“You are not trying to hike all day on an empty stomach. You’ll keel over. Look, I know you’re not feeling great—”

“I’m fine,” he said instantly.

She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “But you have to eat. Take some more aspirin.”

He shook out a few more, swallowed them, then finished the granola bar, chewing and swallowing as if he had a gun to his head. “Let’s go.”

They took a compass bearing, then set out. The jungle noises seemed oddly sharp, colors unusually bright, smells extra-distinct. Had everything been this… vivid… the day before?

You’re imagining things, Destiny said to herself. She didn’t dare address her tiger.

For a few hours, they made good time. Then she noticed that Ethan was slowing down. She took a closer look at him. He was sweating, which wasn’t surprising in the jungle heat, but his face was pale.

“Let’s take a break,” she suggested.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You don’t look fine, jarhead.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted, then broke into a coughing fit that nearly doubled him over.

“Sit down. You need a break.”

“I’ll be fine.” He straightened up, swayed, then braced his feet firmly on the ground. “Come on.”

“How much good are you going to be breaking into the base if you’re sick and—”

His eyes widened in alarm at something he saw over her shoulder. “Drop!”

As he snatched her gun from his belt, she threw herself to the ground. There was a gunshot, the sound of something breaking, and a yell.

“Freeze!” a male voice shouted.

She looked up from the ground. One of the men who’d been manhandling Ethan at the airfield was holding a pistol on her. Ethan had her gun aimed at him. A tranquilizer rifle with a shattered stock lay on the ground between them. Destiny supposed Ethan had shot it right out of their attacker’s hands.

“Good shot, Ethan,” she said.

“Not really,” he replied, not taking his gaze off the enemy. “I should’ve gone for his head.”

“I guess you’re from Apex,” said Destiny to their enemy. “Give it up. You’re outnumbered. Ethan’s got a gun and I can turn into a tiger.”

“Try it,” the Apex agent replied. “I can shoot it in the head before it can spring. McNeil, drop your weapon.”

“You drop your weapon, Kritsick,” Ethan retorted.

Neither of them moved.